In the retail sales industry, there is often a need to display a supply of products for selection and purchase by consumers. Various prior art display units have been used for this purpose, such as display cases, racks, hangers and open shelves.
Many problems are associated with the above-mentioned display units. One of these problems involves the inability of these prior art display units to position products in a manner in which the products are continually facing the consumer after the consumer removes the front products from the display unit. As with horizontal open shelves, for example, certain products located toward the back of the shelves may not be reached or even viewed by consumers as the products at the front are removed. The result is that it is required to manually move the products toward the front of the shelves in order to continue to properly display the products to the consumer in order to achieve desired merchandising and marketing effects. This process is very time-consuming and can be quite expensive.
Another problem associated with the above-mentioned display units is that the products tend to become misaligned from their desired location and thus fail to satisfy the desirability to maintain the display unit in an organized fashion so that it presents an orderly and attractive appearance.
Display units which automatically maintain merchandise products in the front of the display unit even after a product that has been in the front of the merchandiser assembly has been removed are available. However, these types of display units are not horizontally adjustable so as to permit the accommodation of merchandise products of various widths. Another disadvantage with the above-mentioned display unit is that there are no provisions for vertically stacking such display units such that a substantial number of merchandise products may be displayed in a relatively smaller area than has been possible with the above-mentioned display units.
The present invention overcomes the disadvantages inherent in the above-mentioned prior art product display units of providing an expandable tray assembly comprising display units which maintain merchandise products in a generally horizontal stacked orientation in a manner by which the front of the stack of products is automatically maintained in the front of the tray assembly even after a product that has been in the front of the tray assembly has been removed. Thus, the expandable tray assembly of the present invention will properly display merchandise products so that it presents an orderly and attractive appearance and achieve desired merchandising and marketing effects.
Another practical advantage of the present invention is that the tray units are adjustable in the horizontal, i.e., transverse, direction so as to accommodate merchandise products of various widths. Yet another advantage of the present invention is that the tray units may be stacked in a vertical direction providing an expandable tray assembly which can display a substantial number of merchandise products with a minimum amount of space.